Why We Ignore the Pain That Matters Most
I just got back from three weeks in the Arctic. Months of travel stacked on months of travel, with one scheduled trip left before I can stop moving for a while. My body's tired in the way that comes from planes, hotels and giving away lots of energy, but my mind has that clarity that only shows up when you've been stripped down to basics for long enough.
I've had this shoulder thing for a while now. Nothing dramatic, just a slow lingering issue that's always there in the back of my mind. Even when I'm not training, I'm aware of it. I adjust how I carry a bag. How I sleep. Small compensations I don't even think about anymore.
When I do train, the adjustments are automatic. I modify the movement before I even start. Roll my shoulder through its range of motion. Calculate what I can work through and what I need to avoid.
That's what we do with physical pain. We're aware of it. We protect it. We adjust constantly.
But here's what I've been sitting with: I train 6 times a week, and if I miss a session, there's this guilt that climbs in. I try to talk my way through it, negotiate with myself, but the weight of it sits heavy. Missing training feels like a failure.
But journaling? Meditation? The things that actually keep my head straight? If I miss a day, it's just "I'll do it tomorrow." No guilt. No immediate adjustment. No automatic compensation.
The gravity of physical feels heavier. Always has.
I think that's the real struggle. We've been conditioned to treat our bodies as machines that need maintenance while treating our minds as something that should just work regardless of care. When the body breaks down, we panic. When the mind breaks down, we push through.
When I'm traveling, when I'm busy, journaling tends to falls away first. Days turn into weeks. And I can feel it, that pressure building with no release valve. But I don't treat it the same way I'd treat a physical injury. I just accept it as the cost of being busy.
Until recently, that pattern defined most of my life.
What changed was making a decision about work. About traveling less. About certain types of trips that were costing more than they were worth. About focusing on my future instead of just performing other people's present.
That decision forced me to see something I'd been avoiding: mental and physical health aren't separate things. They're the same thing. Your mind lives in your body. When your body is exhausted, undernourished, never still, your mind doesn't have the foundation it needs.
But watch the paradox I see in people around me, in the clients I work with, in friends and colleagues. They'll readily admit to physical neglect. "I need to train more." "I'm drinking too much." "I should eat better." "I've got to quit smoking."
They'll say these things almost casually, acknowledging the gap between where they are and where they should be.
But they never say the equivalent about their mental health. Never "I need to deal with my anxiety." Never "This stress is unsustainable." Never "I should probably talk to someone about the overthinking that's stealing my sleep."
The admission that something needs to change physically comes easy. The admission that something needs to change mentally doesn't come at all.
I watch people push through mental pain that would absolutely cripple them if it was physical. Anxiety so bad they can barely breathe, but they show up to work because "everyone's stressed." Stress levels sending their nervous system into constant fight-or-flight, but they just grab another coffee. Self-doubt so deep it affects every decision, but they never mention it because admitting it feels like weakness.
Imagine applying that same logic to physical injuries.
"Yeah, I tore my ACL three months ago, but I'm just pushing through it."
"My shoulder's been dislocated for weeks, but I don't want to seem weak."
"I think I broke my wrist, but I'm going to keep using it and hope it fixes itself."
You'd intervene. You'd call that dangerous.
But we do this with our mental health constantly, and nobody says a word.
Here's what I've learned working with people as a mindset and performance coach, I can't give someone the solution. That's not how change works. But what I can do is make them uncomfortable enough to realize they need one.
Because that's the gap. People know they're struggling. They just don't treat it as urgent.
Physical pain forces urgency. You can't ignore a torn muscle. Your body won't let you.
Mental pain? You can hide that for years. Perform through depression. Smile through anxiety. Achieve past every insecurity. Stay busy enough that you never have to sit with what's actually wrong.
Until something breaks in a way that can't be hidden anymore.
There's another layer to this that keeps people stuck. Sometimes avoiding physical health becomes a defense mechanism. If you don't start exercising, sleeping better, eating properly, you have an excuse for why your mind is struggling. If you actually take care of your body and your mental health still needs work, then you have to face what's actually there. You have to admit the problem exists beyond just being tired or run down.
So you don't start. You keep the physical neglect as a buffer between you and the real work your mind needs.
Mental pain deserves the same immediate attention as physical pain. Actually, it deserves more, because you can put a broken bone in a cast. You can ice a sprained ankle. You can take painkillers for a torn muscle.
But anxiety? Stress? Depression? There's no cast for that. No ice pack for overthinking. No painkiller for insecurity.
When your shoulder hurts, your body forces you to adjust immediately. When your mental health is compromised, nothing forces you to adjust. Your mind will let you destroy yourself while maintaining the performance that everything's fine.
Physical pain makes us compensate because we feel it. We see it. We can't hide from it.
Mental pain? We've learned to hide it so well that we forget it's there until it becomes unbearable.
But it's still there. Every day. Affecting every decision. Draining your energy. Limiting what you're capable of. Keeping you from who you could actually be.
So what do you do when you realize you've been treating the pain that's visible while ignoring the pain that matters most?
You start with awareness. That's always the first step. Recognizing that the pattern exists. That you've been giving your body immediate attention while letting your mind deteriorate slowly enough that you've stopped noticing.
When anxiety starts creeping in, you pause. You ask what needs to change instead of just pushing through.
When stress is overwhelming, you pull back. You reassess what's actually important versus what's just noise.
When overthinking steals your sleep, you address what's bothering you instead of scrolling until morning.
When depression starts taking hold, you reach out now instead of waiting until you're drowning.
When insecurity affects your decisions, you do the work to understand where it comes from instead of performing past it.
When self-doubt is louder than confidence, you rebuild what's been eroded instead of hoping it goes away.
One thing that's helped me personally is treating both mental and physical maintenance with the same seriousness. Journaling isn't optional when training isn't optional. Meditation isn't something I do when I have time, just like I don't only train when I have time.
Your mind deserves the same care you give your body.
A torn muscle heals with time and rest. Mental pain left untreated compounds. It builds. It doesn't disappear because you're busy enough to ignore it.
This isn't about weakness. It's about being honest about what's happening instead of pretending everything's fine while you slowly fall apart.
Here's the part that I hope lands for you... You're not going to suddenly wake up one day and decide to fix this. You're going to keep pushing until your body forces you to stop or your mind breaks in a way you can't hide anymore. You'll lose the relationship because you were too anxious to be present. You'll miss your kid's childhood because you were too stressed to actually see them. You'll burn out so completely that getting out of bed feels impossible, and by then the damage will take years to undo instead of months. Your refusal to treat your mental health with the same urgency as your physical health isn't protecting you from anything. It's just determining whether you deal with this now while you still have some control, or later when you have none.
On October 18th, when I'm back from the Pantanal, I'm going into full preparation mode for my Greenland crossing next year. Physical training, yes. But also the mental work. The journaling. The meditation. The honest assessment of where I am and what needs attention.
You can't perform at your best with a body that's broken. And you can't perform at your best with a mind that's breaking either.
Both matter.
Both need attention.
Both deserve the same urgency when something's wrong.
Stop ignoring the pain that matters most.